1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for setting multi-paths. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for setting multi-paths by taking previous hop address information into account.
2. Description of the Related Art
The development of the Internet and mobile communication technologies allowed users to enjoy various multimedia services regardless of time and space, causing a noticeable change in their everyday life. Particularly, with the recent increasing spread of small-sized portable electronic devices such as notebook PCs and PDAs, there are increasing attempts to implement the Internet-based data communication not only through wire networks but also through wireless networks.
Traditionally, an inter-path interference may occur when a multi-path is set amongst nodes of a network. The typical wireless network can include an ad-hoc network. An ad-hoc network is characterized in that it has no centralized management apparatus and it does not use the existing communication-based configuration and does not have fixed control apparatuses (router, host, wireless base station, and the like) for providing connection between mobile nodes. That is, according to the ad-hoc network, a mobile node itself serves as a router. Therefore, when a specific mobile node desires to perform communication with a correspondent node, the mobile node should establish a communication path through several nodes located between the mobile node and the correspondent node.
An exemplary implementation of an ad-hoc network can include a sensor network composed of a plurality of sensors. Because the development of low-price, low-power and multifunction sensor nodes is possible due to the recent development of wireless communication technology, it is possible to perform sensing, data processing and communication operations by implementing the sensor network composed of the small-sized sensor nodes. That is, the sensor network is composed of many densely distributed sensor nodes. In order to collect and deliver desired information through the many sensor nodes, a routing protocol between sensor nodes composed of only the wireless interfaces needs to be implemented. In addition, the routing protocol should be able to appropriately cope with the phenomena occurring due to the free movement of the sensor nodes.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved apparatus and method for setting a multi-path, which can reduce inter-path interferences.